System and method for assigning multimedia content elements to users

ABSTRACT

A method and system for assigning a multimedia content element to a user. The method includes generating at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determining, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; and assigning a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/198,154 filed on Mar. 5, 2014, now allowed, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/773,356 filed on Mar. 6, 2013. The 14/198,154 application is also a continuation-in-part (CIP) application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/624,397 filed on Sep. 21, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,191,626, which is a CIP of:

(a) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/344,400 filed on Jan. 5, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,959,037, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/434,221 filed on May 1, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,112,376;

(b) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/084,150 having a filing date of Apr. 7, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,655,801, which is the National Stage of International Application No. PCT/IL2006/001235, filed on Oct. 26, 2006, which claims foreign priority from Israeli Application No. 171577 filed on Oct. 26, 2005, and Israeli Application No. 173409 filed on Jan. 29, 2006; and

(c) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/195,863 filed on Aug. 21, 2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,326,775, which claims priority under 35 USC 119 from Israeli Application No. 185414, filed on Aug. 21, 2007, and which is also a continuation-in-part (CIP) of the above-referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/084,150.

All of the applications referenced above are herein incorporated by reference for all that they contain.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to the analysis of multimedia content, and more specifically to a system for analyzing multimedia content elements and assigning the multimedia content elements to users.

BACKGROUND

The Internet, also referred to as the worldwide web (WWW), has become a mass media source where every client can easily upload and download multimedia content. Some people tend to do so in order to share their creation with their friends and colleagues all around the world and others for commercial motives, for example, painters who sells their paintings over the internet.

In this modern age the enforcement of copyrights has become much more complicated. It seems that authorities do not have sufficient means for identifying infringements of copyrights of proprietary content over the web.

It would therefore be advantageous to provide a solution that assigns multimedia content to its respective creator.

SUMMARY

A summary of several example embodiments of the disclosure follows. This summary is provided for the convenience of the reader to provide a basic understanding of such embodiments and does not wholly define the breadth of the disclosure. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated embodiments, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all embodiments nor to delineate the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more embodiments in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later. For convenience, the term “some embodiments” or “certain embodiments” may be used herein to refer to a single embodiment or multiple embodiments of the disclosure.

Certain embodiments disclosed herein include a method for assigning a multimedia content element to a user. The method comprises: generating at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determining, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; and assigning a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.

Certain embodiments disclosed herein also include a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon causing a processing circuitry to execute a process, the process comprising: generating at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determining, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; and assigning a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database

Certain embodiments disclosed herein also include a system for assigning a multimedia content element to a user. The system comprises: a processing circuitry; and a memory coupled to the processing circuitry, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, configure the system to: generate at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determine, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; and assign a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter disclosed herein is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the disclosed embodiments will be apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a system for creating a database of multimedia content according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart describing the process of creating a database of multimedia content and assigning the multimedia content elements to users according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram depicting the basic flow of information in the signature generator system.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the flow of patches generation, response vector generation, and signature generation in a large-scale speech-to-text system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

It is important to note that the embodiments disclosed herein are only examples of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings herein. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed embodiments. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others. In general, unless otherwise indicated, singular elements may be in plural and vice versa with no loss of generality. In the drawings, like numerals refer to like parts through several views.

Certain exemplary embodiments disclosed herein enable the creation of a database of multimedia content elements received from users and assigning and associating the multimedia content elements with owners or creators of the such elements (hereinafter “users”). The multimedia content elements are analyzed and, based on the analysis, one or more matching signatures are generated. The signatures are utilized to enable the assignment of the multimedia content elements to the users.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary and non-limiting schematic diagram of a system 100 utilized to describe the disclose embodiments for creating a database of multimedia content elements assigned to users in accordance with one embodiment. A network 110 is used to communicate between different parts of the system 100. The network 110 may be the Internet, the world-wide-web (WWW), a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a metro area network (MAN), and other networks capable of enabling communication between the elements of the system 100.

Further connected to the network 110 are one or more user devices 120-1 through 120-n (collectively referred to hereinafter as user devices 120 or individually as a user device 120, merely for simplicity purposes). A user device 120 may be, but is not limited to, a personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), mobile phone, a tablet computer, and other kinds of wired and mobile appliances, equipped with browsing, viewing, listening, filtering, receiving and managing capabilities, etc., that are enabled as further discussed herein below.

Each user device 120 may execute at least one application 125 that can render multimedia content captured by the device (e.g., from a video camera) over the device's display. An application 125 also communicates with a server 130, enabling performance of the embodiments disclosed in detail above. As a non-limiting example, an application 125 is a web browser, independent application, or plug-in application.

The server 130 is communicatively connected to the network 110 and may receive multimedia content from the user devices 120. The multimedia content may include, for example, an image, a graphic, a video stream, a video clip, an audio stream, an audio clip, a video frame, a photograph, and an image of signals (e.g., spectrograms, phasograms, scalograms, etc.), and/or combinations thereof and portions thereof.

The system 100 also includes a signature generator system (SGS) 140. In one embodiment, the SGS 140 is communicatively connected to the server 130 either through a direct connection or through the network 110. The server 130 is further enabled to receive and serve multimedia content elements and causes the SGS 140 to generate a signature respective of the multimedia content received or served by the server 130. The process for generating the signatures for multimedia content is explained in more detail herein below with respect to FIGS. 3 and 4.

It should be noted that each of the server 130 and the SGS 140 typically comprises a processing unit, such as a processor (not shown) that is coupled to a memory (not shown). The memory contains instructions that can be executed by the processor. The server 130 also includes a network interface (not shown) to the network 110.

A plurality of web servers 150-1 through 150-m are also connected to the network 110, each of which is configured to generate and send content elements to the server 130. In an embodiment, the web servers 150-1 through 150-m typically, but not necessarily exclusively, are resources for information that can be utilized to provide multimedia content relevant to multimedia content items captured by the devices 120. The content and the respective generated signatures are stored in a data warehouse 160 which is connected to the server 130 (either directly or through the network 110) for further use.

According to the embodiments disclosed herein, multimedia content elements and a request are sent from the user device 120 to the server 130. The request is to assign and associate the multimedia content elements with the user of the device 120. The request may also include one or more parameter identifying the user. Examples for such parameters may include one of or more of a user name, address, studio name and location, and so on.

In an embodiment, the communication with a user device 120 and the server 130 is initiated by the application 125. That is, the request to analyze the multimedia content elements can be generated and sent by the application 125 installed or executed in the user device 120. The request to analyze the multimedia content may include a URL to a repository or a web-page containing the content elements to be processed. Alternatively or collectively, the content elements can be uploaded to the server 130 through the application 125.

The server 130 is then configured to analyze the multimedia content elements. It should be noted that the server 130 may analyze all or a sub-set of the multimedia content elements. The SGS 140 generates for each multimedia content element provided by the server 130 at least one signature. The generated signature(s) may be robust to noise and distortion as discussed below. Then, using the generated signature(s) the server 130 searches the data warehouse 160 to check whether the multimedia content exists in the data warehouse 160 based on the generated signatures. If the multimedia content does not exist in the data warehouse 160, the server 130 generates for each non-existing multimedia content element a unique ID related to the user.

The generated unique ID is saved together with the multimedia content element in the data warehouse 160. In one embodiment, the unique ID is embedded as a watermark in the multimedia content element. In yet another embodiment, a new signature for the multimedia content element and the unique ID is generated and also saved in the database with association with the multimedia contents.

It should be noted that the data warehouse 160 populated with the multimedia content elements, unique IDs, and signatures as discussed herein above can be utilized to detect at least valuation of copyrights. In a limiting embodiment, if a content element (picture) that its publication suspiciously violates copyrights of the owner can be uploaded to the server 120. A check is made if the element exists in the warehouse 160, and if so based on the unique ID assigned to the element, the user (or owner) of the picture can be informed on the usage of the element.

It should be appreciated that the signature generated for the multimedia content elements would enable accurate recognition of the elements within the multimedia content because the signatures generated for the elements, according to the disclosed embodiments, allow for recognition and classification of multimedia elements, such as, content-tracking, video filtering, multimedia taxonomy generation, video fingerprinting, speech-to-text, audio classification, element recognition, video/image search and any other application requiring content-based signatures generation and matching for large content volumes such as, web and other large-scale databases.

In one embodiment, the signatures generated for more than one multimedia content element are clustered. The clustered signatures are used to search for a matching multimedia content element.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary and non-limiting flowchart 200 describing the process of creating a database of multimedia content elements and assigning the multimedia content elements to users according to an embodiment. The method may be performed by the server 210.

In S210, a request to assign a multimedia content element is received. The request includes at least one parameter identifying the user. In S220, at least one multimedia content element, or a link thereto, is also received from a user device 120. As noted above, the least one request and at least one content element can be received from an agent (e.g., an add-on or application 125) installed in the user device 120.

In S230, at least one signature to the multimedia content element is generated. The signature for the multimedia content element is generated by a SGS as described below. The at least one signature may include a signature being robust to noise and distortion. In S240, it is checked whether the generated signature exists in the data warehouse 160, and if so, execution continues with S260; otherwise, execution continues with S250.

In S250, a unique identifier is generated to the multimedia content element respective of the user and execution continues with S270. According to one embodiment, the unique ID can be generated as a random function computed over one or more of the input user parameters and/or the generated signature. According to another embodiment, the unique ID may be constructed using a predefined notation, e.g., <USER-NAME_sequence-number>. The sequence-number is an integer increased for each new content elements saved in the warehouse. The sequence-number may also be the generated signature.

In S270, the generated unique ID is stored in the data warehouse in association with the input multimedia content element. In an embodiment, a watermark including the unique ID is embedded in the multimedia content element. In another embodiment, a signature for the input multimedia content element and its generated unique ID is generated using the SGS 130, and stored in the data warehouse in association with multimedia content element.

In S260, existing multimedia content related action is performed and execution terminates. The existing multimedia content related action may be, for example, generation of a notification of the existence of a multimedia content to the user of the user device 120. As noted above, such notification may be an identification of a misuse of copyrights of the content element. In S280 it is checked whether additional requests have been received, and if so, execution continues with S210; otherwise, execution terminates.

As a non-limiting example, an image of a sculpture is received together with a request to assign the image to its user. The image is then analyzed and at least one signature is generated respective thereto. Then, it is checked whether the signature of the sculpture image exists in the data warehouse. If so, a notification may be sent to the user indicating that the image exists in the warehouse. If not, a unique identifier is generated respective of the image and the image is then stored in the database along with its unique user identifier.

It should be understood to one of ordinary skill in the art that multimedia content may be assigned to a user based on the elements that appear within the multimedia content or based on other parameters related to the appearance of the elements within the multimedia content. In such cases where the multimedia content is assigned to users based on the appearance of the elements within the multimedia content, it should be understood that multimedia content elements that appear in different ways may be assigned to different users.

FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate the generation of signatures for the multimedia content elements by the SGS 140 according to one embodiment. An exemplary high-level description of the process for large scale matching is depicted in FIG. 3. In this example, the matching is for a video content.

Video content segments 2 from a Master database (DB) 6 and a Target DB 1 are processed in parallel by a large number of independent computational Cores 3 that constitute an architecture for generating the Signatures (hereinafter the “Architecture”). Further details on the computational Cores generation are provided below. The independent Cores 3 generate a database of Robust Signatures and Signatures 4 for Target content-segments 5 and a database of Robust Signatures and Signatures 7 for Master content-segments 8. An exemplary and non-limiting process of signature generation for an audio component is shown in detail in FIG. 4. Finally, Target Robust Signatures and/or Signatures are effectively matched, by a matching algorithm 9, to Master Robust Signatures and/or Signatures database to find all matches between the two databases.

To demonstrate an example of signature generation process, it is assumed, merely for the sake of simplicity and without limitation on the generality of the disclosed embodiments, that the signatures are based on a single frame, leading to certain simplification of the computational cores generation. The Matching System is extensible for signatures generation capturing the dynamics in-between the frames.

The Signatures generation process will now be described with reference to FIG. 4. The first step in the process of signatures generation from a given speech-segment is to breakdown the speech-segment to K patches 14 of random length P and random position within the speech segment 12. The breakdown is performed by the patch generator component 21. The value of the number of patches K, random length P and random position parameters is determined based on optimization, considering the tradeoff between accuracy rate and the number of fast matches required in the flow process of the server 130 and SGS 140. Thereafter, all the K patches are injected in parallel to all computational Cores 3 to generate K response vectors 22, which are fed into a signature generator system 23 to produce a database of Robust Signatures and Signatures 4.

In order to generate Robust Signatures, i.e., Signatures that are robust to additive noise L (where L is an integer equal to or greater than 1) by the Computational Cores 3 a frame ‘i’ is injected into all the Cores 3. Then, Cores 3 generate two binary response vectors: {right arrow over (S)} which is a Signature vector, and {right arrow over (RS)} which is a Robust Signature vector.

For generation of signatures robust to additive noise, such as White-Gaussian-Noise, scratch, etc., but not robust to distortions, such as crop, shift and rotation, etc., a core Ci={ni} (1≦i≦L) may consist of a single leaky integrate-to-threshold unit (LTU) node or more nodes. The node ni equations are:

$V_{i} = {\sum\limits_{j}{w_{ij}k_{j}}}$ n_(i) = θ(Vi − Th_(x))

where, θ is a Heaviside step function; w_(ij) is a coupling node unit (CNU) between node i and image component j (for example, grayscale value of a certain pixel j); kj is an image component ‘j’ (for example, grayscale value of a certain pixel j); Thx is a constant Threshold value, where ‘x’ is ‘S’ for Signature and ‘RS’ for Robust Signature; and Vi is a Coupling Node Value.

The Threshold values Th_(x) are set differently for Signature generation and for Robust Signature generation. For example, for a certain distribution of Vi values (for the set of nodes), the thresholds for Signature (Th_(S)) and Robust Signature (Th_(RS)) are set apart, after optimization, according to at least one or more of the following criteria:

For V_(i)>Th_(RS)   1:

1−p(V>Th_(S))−1−(1−ε)^(l)<<1

i.e., given that l nodes (cores) constitute a Robust Signature of a certain image I, the probability that not all of these I nodes will belong to the Signature of same, but noisy image, Ĩ is sufficiently low (according to a system's specified accuracy).

p(V_(i)>Th_(RS))≈l/L   2:

i.e., approximately l out of the total L nodes can be found to generate a Robust Signature according to the above definition.

3: Both Robust Signature and Signature are generated for certain frame i.

It should be understood that the generation of a signature is unidirectional, and typically yields lossless compression, where the characteristics of the compressed data are maintained but the uncompressed data cannot be reconstructed. Therefore, a signature can be used for the purpose of comparison to another signature without the need of comparison to the original data. The detailed description of the Signature generation can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,326,775 and 8,312,031, assigned to common assignee, which are hereby incorporated by reference for all the useful information they contain.

A Computational Core generation is a process of definition, selection, and tuning of the parameters of the cores for realizing certain goals in a specific system and application. The process is based on several design considerations, such as:

(a) The Cores should be designed so as to obtain maximal independence, i.e., the projection from a signal space should generate a maximal pair-wise distance between any two cores' projections into a high-dimensional space.

(b) The Cores should be optimally designed for the type of signals being used, i.e., the Cores should be maximally sensitive to the spatio-temporal structure of the injected signal, for example, and in particular, sensitive to local correlations in time and space. Thus, in some cases a core represents a dynamic system, such as in state space, phase space, edge of chaos, etc., which is uniquely used herein to exploit their maximal computational power.

(c) The Cores should be optimally designed with regard to invariance to a set of signal distortions, of interest in relevant applications.

Detailed description of the Computational Core generation, the computational architecture, and the process for configuring such cores is discussed in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,655,801 assigned to common assignee, herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains.

The various embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented as hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof. Moreover, the software is preferably implemented as an application program tangibly embodied on a program storage unit or computer readable medium consisting of parts, or of certain devices and/or a combination of devices. The application program may be uploaded to, and executed by, a machine comprising any suitable architecture. Preferably, the machine is implemented on a computer platform having hardware such as one or more central processing units (“CPUs”), a memory, and input/output interfaces. The computer platform may also include an operating system and microinstruction code. The various processes and functions described herein may be either part of the microinstruction code or part of the application program, or any combination thereof, which may be executed by a CPU, whether or not such a computer or processor is explicitly shown. In addition, various other peripheral units may be connected to the computer platform such as an additional data storage unit and a printing unit. Furthermore, a non-transitory computer readable medium is any computer readable medium except for a transitory propagating signal.

All examples and conditional language recited herein are intended for pedagogical purposes to aid the reader in understanding the principles of the disclosure and the concepts contributed by the inventor to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions. Moreover, all statements herein reciting principles, aspects, and embodiments, as well as specific examples thereof, are intended to encompass both structural and functional equivalents thereof. Additionally, it is intended that such equivalents include both currently known equivalents as well as equivalents developed in the future, i.e., any elements developed that perform the same function, regardless of structure. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for assigning a multimedia content element to a user, comprising: generating at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determining, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; and assigning a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: searching in the database using the generated at least one signature, wherein it is determined that the multimedia content element exists in the database when a multimedia content element associated with at least one signature matching the generated at least one signature is found during the search.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: generating the unique identifier of the user, wherein the unique identifier is generated using a random function computed over at least one parameter identifying the user.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: creating a watermark based on the assigned unique identifier, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database; and embedding the created watermark in the multimedia content element.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: generating a notification indicating a violation of copyright of the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element exists in the database.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: storing the multimedia content element and the assigned unique identifier in a database, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia content element is at least one of: an image, graphics, a video stream, a video clip, an audio stream, an audio clip, a video frame, a photograph, images of signals, combinations thereof, and portions thereof.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein each signature is robust to noise and distortion.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein each signature is generated by a signature generator system, wherein the signature generator system includes a plurality of computational cores configured to receive a plurality of unstructured data elements, each computational core of the plurality of computational cores having properties that are at least partly statistically independent of other of the computational cores, wherein the properties of each core are set independently of each other core.
 10. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing a processing circuitry to execute a process, the process comprising: generating at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determining, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; and assigning a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.
 11. A system for assigning a multimedia content element to a user, comprising: a processing circuitry; and a memory coupled to the processing circuitry, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, configure the system to: generate at least one signature to the multimedia content element; determine, based on the generated at least one signature, whether the multimedia content element exists in a database; assign a unique identifier of the user to the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the system is further configured to: search in the database using the generated at least one signature, wherein it is determined that the multimedia content element exists in the database when a multimedia content element associated with at least one signature matching the generated at least one signature is found during the search.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the system is further configured to: generate the unique identifier of the user, wherein the unique identifier is generated using a random function computed over at least one parameter identifying the user.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein the system is further configured to: create a watermark based on the assigned unique identifier, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database; and embed the created watermark in the multimedia content element.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein the system is further configured to: generate a notification indicating a violation of copyright of the multimedia content element, when it is determined that the multimedia content element exists in the database.
 16. The system of claim 11, wherein the system is further configured to: store the multimedia content element and the assigned unique identifier in a database, when it is determined that the multimedia content element does not exist in the database.
 17. The system of claim 11, wherein the multimedia content element is at least one of: an image, graphics, a video stream, a video clip, an audio stream, an audio clip, a video frame, a photograph, images of signals, combinations thereof, and portions thereof.
 18. The system of claim 11, wherein each signature is robust to noise and distortion.
 19. The system of claim 11, further comprising: a signature generator system, wherein each signature is generated by the signature generator system, wherein the signature generator system includes a plurality of computational cores configured to receive a plurality of unstructured data elements, each computational core of the plurality of computational cores having properties that are at least partly statistically independent of other of the computational cores, wherein the properties of each core are set independently of each other core. 